Pages

Meet the Designers: Nele from Spiegelstiksels

Hello everyone!

I’m Nele and I live in Belgium in the beautiful city of Ghent. I’m a 37 year old sewing perfectionist, who loves prints, color, flowers, collars, pockets, crisp seams, pleats and much more. I’m the wife of a husband who wears me-made Liberty shirts and a mother of 2 girls and 2 boys who place more clothes orders than I can handle. I have been sewing since university, when a friend asked me if I cared to join her to sewing classes in our free time. Before then, it never really occurred to me that I was able to actually make something with my own hands, although the feel of different fabrics have always appealed to me. I was immediately interested in the technical aspects of sewing and pattern drafting. Being the granddaughter of a tailor and a seamstress, and with some relatives in the weaving business, maybe the sewing was already going through my veins. In my mid-twenties, I started doing some costume design for street performances, but once the children came, I have been making clothes for them. I love to make dresses for the girls, shirts for the boys and husband, but also more challenging projects like jackets and coats. From September 2011 until December 2013 I took classes in pattern drafting. My big dream is to – one day – design and make something for myself ;-).

In daily life I work as a staff member for a children’s rights organization and teach at the university college of Antwerp in the department of Teacher Training. I could call my jobs ‘rather demanding’, but I love them. As my perfectionism in sewing is also very time consuming, I hardly get enough sleep from time to time. You can probably guess that I’m a little nervous about participating in Project Run and Play, especially to get everything done in time. But I’m also excited to try. I’ve never really made anything inspired by a given theme, so this is new to me and fun to try. I think this season will be inspiring and I hope that being a contestant will challenge me to try new things.